Bad dreams

One of the things about grieving is that it does tend to bring up some pretty freaky dreams. I’ve spend the last few nights being lead on some not-so-pleasant choice-less own adventures by my brain. It sucks when even in my sleep, I can’t get away from all this crap on my mind.

Do you have the same dream over and over again? I can’t really say that I’ve ever had that happen to me. Of course, if I dream every night, most nights I have forgotten the dreams by the time I wake up. For the longest time, I simply thought that I didn’t dream.

So I’ve obviously heard of people having recurring dreams. My father once told me that he had a recurring dream, years after retiring from the Navy, of being on a ship, and not being able to find one piece of his uniform, and therefore not being able to leave the ship. He looked everywhere, all over the ship.

But I’m not one to put too much into dreams, and their meanings. I think it’s probably just the last few synapses firing when you fall into subconsciousness, a random refrigerator casserole of whatever was going on in your mind, what was going on in the back of your mind that you didn’t even realize, and some random memories.

But I think that my dad’s dream is stressed related. In fact, I think most dreams are stressed related. Even when you don’t think you are experiencing any stress. It’s your brain’s way of spazzing out and trying to shake it off.

While I’ve never had the same dream over and over again, I have had certain themes that have come up over the years. I dream about messed up bathrooms. Once, the toilet is too big for me to actually get on. Another time, there was a series of stalls that don’t have the in-between walls, so that when I sat down and looked left and right, I could see all the other women on the other toilets. Feel free to try to analyze that. I’d love to hear your theories.

There are also, recurring locations. I used to have dreams that all happened in the same house. It wasn’t a house that I had ever been in, and there were things about it that didn’t make sense. There was a secret room that had to be accessed through a serious of tiny spaces, and hidden doorways, and stairways in the front and back of the house, even though it wasn’t really that big. I found myself in that house over and over again, but the other people with me were always different, as was the circumstance. Again, I welcome your thoughts as to what that might be about.

And then, there’s the bridge of my nightmares. I have had so many dreams about having to get across this bridge. There’s always some weird thing going on that prevents it from being a simple drive across. Even times when it’s a straightforward crossing, this bridge is whack. It’s so steep, that I wonder if my car can climb it; it climbs high up into the air, higher than a high-rise in New York; it’s narrow.

But normally I can’t just cross it. There’s usually something wrong with it, and I have to go through some trials to get across. The bridge is out, so I have to get on a barge, but it’s only accessible via a rickety old dock. Or there’s only one lane open on this already tiny, narrow bridge.

Last night I had to cross it on a zipline strung over the road of the bridge, hand over hand, all the way up and down. No wonder why I keep waking up totally exhausted. I keep getting that kind of workout in the middle of the night.